Rebecca Jarvis

SM 633 Transcript

EPISODE 633

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:35.3]

FT: Welcome to So Money everyone. I’m your host, Farnosh Torabi. Happy Monday. Excited to announce that this week we are doing a podcast crossover with No Limits, with Rebecca Jarvis. Have you heard of this amazing new podcast? You should subscribe.

Rebecca Jarvis is a friend. She's also the senior business economics and technology correspondent for ABC News and on this podcast, the No Limits Podcast, she interviews female visionaries and entrepreneurs from cosmetics queen; Bobby Brown, to the Grammy award- winning musician; Jewel, and they talk all about their hard-earned lessons, their climb to success, their challenges with wealth.

On today show, Rebecca stops by to talk about her favorite interviews so far. We also discussed intrapreneurship and her predictions about the economy, the markets as somebody who covers all of these stuff very closely. I was very curious to hear her take.

Tomorrow you can head over to her podcast, No Limits, and hear her interview with me. I have to say on that podcast she asked questions that were a bit difﬁcult to answer and I think I ended up revealing a lot. In fact, when it was over, I went back and begged the producer to edit parts of it and I don't think they did. There you go. That's not a teaser for you to run over to No Limits and hear what I had to say about love and marriage. I go there. Don't miss her show.

First, here is the lovely and smart, Rebecca, on So Money.

[INTERVIEW]

FT: Rebecca, welcome back to So Money. It's been like two and a half years. It's been a while.

[0:02:14.5]

RJ: You’re like a rocket ship to the moon, Farnoosh. It’s great to be with you.

[0:02:18.9]

FT: Hey, I’m just following on your coattails. I’m not doing anything different than you. You are out there killing it. Listeners, for those of you who are catching up, Rebecca Jarvis is the senior business technology and economics correspondent for ABC News, which means your all over that network; mornings, afternoons, evenings, weekend. Is there any timeslot you're not in? Also you’ve got the podcast, No Limits, which I want to talk about.

I really see you as being as so enterprising and entrepreneurial within your role at a network. That’s you. That’s no one telling you to do that.

[0:02:57.6]

RJ: Thank you, Farnoosh. I learned a new word the other day, intrapreneur. It's when you're an entrepreneur inside of a company, and that's how — I feel like that's sort of what I'm trying to do. Because of what ABC News lets me do, I’m able to create a lot of cool stuff and No Limits is one of those things, and I look at you and all the things that you’ve built, and you have been a role model to me, a good friend to me over the years and then I really look up to you and I genuinely love what you created with So Money. So congratulations to you for all your success.

[0:03:31.9]

FT: Thank you. You helped launch my podcast, graciously coming on as one of the first guests. Listeners, go back and listen to I think it was like episode — It was one of the first 10 episodes, for sure, and we talk all about your childhood, growing up, your money lessons, your financial habits, your lessons learned. This time, coming back now, two plus years later, I want to talk about what's new and what's on your play.

One of those big things is your podcast, No Limits, with Rebecca Jarvis, which I had the opportunity of being on. In fact, we’re airing our episodes simultaneously. Make sure to go to No

Limits on iTunes with RJ and download it, subscribe and listen to us talk in case you haven’t gotten enough of us already. Tell me how you got the inspiration other than of course being on my podcast, but certainly there must have been more motivation.

[0:04:31.8]

RJ: Yeah. It is a total rip-off of So Money at the end of the day. I love these conversations. I love that you and I can have this conversation here on So Money. I love the conversations that I'm able to have with women on No Limits. We’re focusing on bold, inﬂuential women playing at the top of their game, looking at the trade-offs and how they got there. For me, because I had been covering business and tech news for so many years and interviewing so many CEOs and founders and people who are working really hard to build empires and make a difference, I got to this point where I started to feel like I'm having these really cool conversations with people, but in the world of TV, you get to hear 30 seconds worth of them.

I wanted to let that breathe a little bit and I wanted especially to focus on women and give women a platforms to talk more about the things that they're doing, because I also recognize that so many of the interviews that I was doing with were with incredible people, including leaving men and women, but I really thought there needs to be more of a home where women who are doing exceptional things could talk about their roadmap, can talk about the things that they've experienced in their career.

I wanted to create a home for that and I hope that’s what we’re doing. I know like you, Farnoosh, like the conversations are as fulﬁlling to me as I hope that they’ll be fulﬁlling to our listeners, but even if no one was listening, I would still hope to be having the kind of conversations that we have.

[0:06:09.2]

FT: That’s a thing, right? These are really intimate conversations that you don't normally get to have on a huge platform like a podcast that’s airing through ABC News and on iTunes and yet you get these women who live very public lives in the sense that they are out there in the headlines, running companies, but they share some really intimate things with you. Tell us some

© 2017 Farnoosh, Inc. 3 SM 633 Transcript sort of like — What were some of the most incredible stories that you almost couldn't believe you were hearing? You've interviewed everyone, from Jewel, to Robin Roberts and everyone in between. Tell us something that you thought was just mind blowing.

[0:06:48.6]

RJ: With Jewel, she told me that she passed up a multimillion-dollar contract when she was homeless. At one point, she had run away from home, she grew up in Alaska. She had a troubled home life and she ran away to perform in coffee shops and a music agent came in and offered for all of these money and she turned it down because of the fear of basically what it would do to her. How it would change her as a human being. That's a great story.

Robin Roberts had an incredible story of how she came up, wanted to be a pro athlete, loved tennis. Ended up at ESPN and was given this incredible opportunity to come to Good Morning America and talked about all of the lessons that she learned with her family.

I think another standout interview was with a woman named Kathy Giusti, who at 36 years old was diagnosed with a very rare form of cancer called multiple myeloma. She was given just three years to live, had just given birth to a daughter and she basically refused to take all of the negativity and the things that she was being told and she put everything into action. Her background, she actually hadn’t gone to medical school even though it was something she thought about doing, but she was in drug sales at the time and very successful in her business career and she said, “I need to come up with a solution. I need to come up with a solution that’s not just for me, but for all of the other people out there.” She literally set to work and build a foundation called the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation.

Now, years and years later, 20 plus years later, she is alive and well. She's thriving. She had a second child along the way. She created this foundation and now is working with Harvard to also help build out solutions not just for multiple myeloma, but all different forms of cancer. You really start to see how the impetus for building something might be different, obviously along the way. With her, it's really that carpe diem message and it's staring you in the face, and she said that to me, and I'm paraphrasing here, but basically if you wake up every morning and you have a desire and something that you desperately want to pursue, to build, today is the day. That,

© 2017 Farnoosh, Inc. 4 SM 633 Transcript basically, because she stared death down, she recognized how short life is and for her was such an important message in doing the things that you desperately want to do, building the things that you desperately want to build.

[0:09:26.1]

FT: Incredible. I would only hope that everyone could have that sense of courage and determination when faced with such, such severe adversity. On the hand, I wonder about Jewel’s story and feeling almost like she was afraid of accumulating wealth. I don’t know, do you ﬁnd that to be a common thread or is it safe to say or fair to say that that is more common with women than men? I don’t know. You’re interviewing mostly women, all women on your podcast, and you've interviewed men elsewhere. Do you ﬁnd that certain characteristics show up and they tend to be mostly among these incredibly talented and successful women? Some of these insecurities perhaps.

[0:10:11.2]

RJ: That’s a really interesting question. For Jewel, I think a lot of it had to do with the way that she grew up not necessarily that she was a female. I do think that if you grow up —She just really wanted to protect her inner self and she felt like money and the limelight might detract from that. I think on some levels she was looking at the trade-offs and very clearly looking at what it meant to live life in the spotlight and the trade-off of being a hundred percent able to be true to yourself, versus listening to a record executive.

At the same time, a message that continuously comes up. I asked this question of every single guest. I asked it of you, Farnoosh. It’s what’s the worst advice you've ever received in your life.

[0:11:02.9]

FT: Hardest question. That, and also, you asked me what am I still weak at or working, and I fell apart. I was like — I started talking about my marriage, and everything is good, people. I’ve got myself going places with you that I don’t think we were going to go. So my hats off to you.

[0:11:25.0]

RJ: Awesome. I loved your answer, because I think it comes back to the idea, like success is for amateurs. That idea that you shared at UPenn where, basically, life is about more than just being successful in a business or making a lot of money. I totally respect that, and I think what happens with the worst advice, it kind of breaks down into three categories. There's the group that has the source of the bad advice is somebody who's trying to cut you down. They give you bad advice to send you in the wrong direction. There is the group that the person who gives the bad advice just doesn't get you, and then there's the group that gets the bad advice from someone who loves you and is trying to protect you.

What I found most interesting from asking this question now over and over and over again is that 80% of the time, the bad advice comes from a good person who’s trying to help you out, but is trying to protect you from doing something that they consider to be risky or potentially having negative downside. Ultimately it becomes bad advice if you take that bad advice and you don't pursue the thing.

Barbara Corcoran, for example, loved my conversation with her. She talked about the fact that when she was in her early 20s she had already worked almost 2 dozen jobs at this point and she was about to quit a waitressing job to start a real estate company. The bad advice she got was from her mom, which was, “Stay in your waitressing job. Keep doing it. Don't take the risky thing, because you need a resume builder at this point. The last thing you need is to quit and go on to a new thing.” Barbara Corcoran ultimately ignored her mom, started a real estate company, which then years later she sold for $60 million.

[0:13:09.5]

FT: You know what else? She's on the new season of Dancing With the Stars, which is ultimate life goal. That’s my ultimate life goal.

[0:13:15.6]

RJ: Are you going to be on Dancing?

[0:13:18.5]

FT: I wish it was that easy. Do you want to do it? Yes, of course, but there’s decision-makers and people have to decide that you are a “star”. If there was Dancing with the Non-Stars, I would be so at the top of that list.

[0:13:32.6]

RJ: We need to get you in there, Farnoosh. I’m going to start every So Money listener. If you want to see —

[0:13:37.1]

FT: [inaudible 0:13:37.0].

[0:13:39.0]

RJ: If you want to see Farnoosh in Dancing with the Stars, you need to #dwts@farnooshtorabi, #somoney, get it going, make it happen.

[0:13:49.4]

FT: Alright. Okay. Listeners, I have one wish for you. If you do nothing else this year for me, because I know y'all ask, “How can we help you? How can we support you?” Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, #dwts@farnoosh #somoney.

Seriously, I think that would just be my ultimate mic drop. I think I might re-up cable just to see Barbara do the foxtrot with Max.

[0:14:18.5]

RJ: I can’t wait.

[0:14:19.1]

FT: I think that’s going to be incredible. I have learned so much for my guests. I've learned so much from you, and that's one of the best aspects of being a podcast host, is you have this incredible access to some of the most brilliant minds, the most accomplished people who teach you something every single day. What has been something that you have really taken home with you or applied to your career to, your personal life, for real? Like you’re actually doing this because someone on your podcast did it and it inspired you.

[0:14:49.7]

RJ: I think, again, on the worst advice front, one of the things that I consistently hear from women is that early on in their careers they were trying to do things the way that they were told; paint by numbers, dot your eyes, cross your tease, do it the way that the organization is doing it. For a lot of them, that worked out early on in their career, but they got to a point where sort of doing anything that was untrue to themselves, doing it just the way that they were told to do it. It wasn't necessarily the thing that was good to be the breakthrough.

Being truly authentic to yourself, making choices that are bold that may or may not be popular, but are truly coming from your gut, listening to your instincts and being so true to yourself. Every single woman who I talk to says. “That's the moment where things truly started to click in their career.” I do think that there comes a moment in your career where maybe you’ve worked really hard and you've done everything in and you’ve checked off the boxes and you’ve pleased your bosses and all of those things, but there comes a moment where you deﬁne yourself and you say who you are and how you behave. Some of it is leadership and how you manage people.

I do think that the best opportunity lies in the symmetry between being yourself and being in an organization that really values you for you, and when those two things come together, that's the best possible moment.

[0:16:37.0]

FT: And you feel that way right now at ABC.

[0:16:38.6]

RJ: I do. I feel like I'm pushing myself every day to try to think more about what are the things that I really care about, what are the stories that I really care about, like building the community of people who are really into building business and being entrepreneurial and taking chances and taking risks. I'm trying every single day to be closer and closer to that and be more and more a part of that. I find, back to your idea about success is for amateurs, the closer I am to being fulfilled, the more successful I feel. The more I'm close to the content that I care about, talking to really smart people and getting into the heart of conversations like you do hear, the happier I am and the more fulfilled I am. It's a good place to be.

By the way, for anybody who's listening right now, I didn't necessarily think that I would get here. It's not to say that I didn't think that it was impossible, but I spent man, many years in my career happy but wondering is there more. How can I do more of the things that I really care about? Part of the answer is just to do more of the things that you care about, and I know that's going to sound ridiculous, but I think for anybody who's out there who's feeling like stuck or as though they're not breaking through, the question is to ask yourself, I think, “What do I care about and how do I do more of what I care about?” Not how do I get so-and-so to think I'm smart, or how do I get this particular opportunity at work? It's just how do you just start doing those things.

[0:18:30.2]

FT: Yes. It's requires courage, I will say. I don't know that if in the beginning of my career — I think when you're young, you very much just want to follow the path that was paved for you, make your bosses happy, do what's right, but I think that — That’s kind of the process. You have to do stuff to ﬁnd yourself.

[0:18:50.4]

RJ: 100%. I think it's a good idea to work really hard early on, do the things that you're asked to do. I always say it's always — When you're getting new things on your plate, you have to make sure that you're still doing the old less fun stuff at least for a while, because the last thing any boss or manager wants is somebody who's like, “Oh, yeah. I did the cool thing today. I don't want to do any of that like boring stuff that I had to do earlier in my career.”

[0:19:21.7]

FT: You got to eat the vegetable.

[0:19:23.0]

RJ: Bingo! Keep eating your vegetables when you get dessert.

[0:19:27.0]

FT: Yes. You have a really amazing sort of outlook and perspective on all things economy, and now technology, as well as commerce and business. What are your sources that’s telling you, what is your reporting informing you as far as where our freaking economy is headed? People are using the word frothy, bubble. I know that on this show we never want to react to news and we play a long-term game when it comes to investing. We’re still curious, what are you thinking along those lines? What are your sources telling you?

[0:20:07.3]

RJ: I think it’s actually interesting. Goldman Sachs put out this report about two Americas right now that are confusing investors, and on the one hand there’s the Washington D.C., all of the chaos there and what's happening with all of the coverage. Then there the other America, which is sort of less attached to what's happening in Washington D.C. Overall, things in that America, the one that's not as attached to the news cycle every day is feeling okay. It's not necessarily great, but things are okay. I think some of that is reﬂected in what we’re seeing with jobs.

My biggest concern looking at the jobs reports is that while unemployment is historically low, the wages that we would normally expect to see. Usually, you’d see salaries rise as unemployment goes down, because people get paid more when jobs are better, but we’re not really seeing that right now in our recovery. While the recovery has been one of the longest on record since the great recession, the improvements in incomes just aren't there. I worry about that, because obviously everybody wants to get paid more as time goes on. You want to see — That's a sign of a healthy economy, and our economy in the U.S., as you know Farnoosh, is all about what we do as consumers. 70% of our economy is how we spend our money as consumers. If we’re not getting paid more, then we’re not going to be spending more either and that slows down economic growth.

[0:21:44.0]

FT: Yes. For sure. Yup. Oh my gosh! What a throw back to my days or recording for the street.com.

[0:21:50.3]

RJ: Exactly.

[0:21:52.4]

FT: I actually got to start on ABC News at 4:00 in the morning talking about the economy. I couldn’t do that now, but that's why I have guests like you on the show to do it for me.

[0:22:00.1]

RJ: I bet you could do it now if you are forced to do it now, but you're lucky that you don't have to do it right now.

[0:22:06.7]

FT: Yeah. You’re right. I think that if you are looking at the news every single day following politics, and I do, but I feel like you have to distance yourself from having that affect your perspective and management of your money. You just have to sort of keep a long-term view.

What are your big-money goals right now, Rebecca? You’re working more. I hope they you're being able to save more. You’re only 35. You have the world ahead of you, but what are some of your #moneygoals right now?

[0:22:41.1]

RJ: That’s a good question, Farnoosh. I don't know that anyone has asked me that. I think, for me, I am saving. I’m always long-term saving for the future. One of the things that I am interested in doing at this point in my life is ﬁnding entrepreneurs, friends, people who come into my life, learning about their companies and helping to cede them with that like — You know, it's very small amounts of money, but looking for those interesting new startup companies that sound really cool that are run by really smart people and helping them get off the ground initially.

I also am really interested in saving money for my future, for my husband's future. We want to grow a family. By the way, we have never owned a home. I am still a renter, so I think that that's — We’re saving, but were not necessarily saying we need to buy a home anytime soon. You probably see this in the housing market. Home prices have gone up exponentially. They’re up already 7% almost since this time last year.

For a lot of people, in fact, I think I read a research the other day that showed that the cost of housing has gone up so much that in every single place in the country at this point that houses are out of reach, that they’re unaffordable.

[0:24:05.2]

FT: Oh, I feel that. Right now we’re in Brooklyn and we’re thinking where do we want to be in the next 3 to 4 years, 5 years, because that would require in the interim saving, because whether we choose to stay in Brooklyn or leave the city, which we don’t really want to do, but either path requires having capital. I've never had to sell a place before. I don’t know how it works. I guess

© 2017 Farnoosh, Inc. 12 SM 633 Transcript you have to get a bridge loan, because unless you have a ton of savings, you have to use the equity in your home to buy your next home, but what if you ﬁnd your next home before you saw your ﬁrst home? I’m kind of learning all of these right now and in the meantime looking at home prices.

I have noticed in Brooklyn where it's been extremely hot for the past 5, 6 years, a cool down, at least for the size home that we’re looking for, there aren’t actually a lot of homes in Brooklyn in our neighborhood that can comfortably accommodate a family of 4, 5 people. A lot of one- bedrooms, two-bedrooms on the market, but once you get to 3, 4, 5 bedrooms, the number, the inventories like very, very small and some the prices as a result, you think they’d be really high, but it's actually not. I think you’re having a hard time — Sellers are having a hard time letting go of that inventory.

Anyway, long story short, I hear you. It's like a really tough spot to be in, and we’re qualiﬁed buyers, but we just feel like there just isn't anything really attractive in the market for us right now, pricewise and also for what we need. Are you guys ever thinking of leaving the city?

[0:25:43.8]

RJ: I don’t know. I feel like we are city people. Of course, when you have kids, you never know. Things can change there. I grew up in the city of Minneapolis, which is a very different city to grow up in. In New York, it requires far less money to be able to live in it, but it was a great upbringing and I liked the fact that I grew up with a big neighborhood and we always had neighborhood get-togethers. It was a great place to grow up. I hope to be able to do that.

The whole conversation around housing though reminds me of something with Warren Buffett, where he says, “Be fearful when others are greedy, greedy when others are fearful.” I mean that to me is something that I'm always sort of keeping in the back of my mind, which is basically when everybody is rushing into something, for example, housing, that's when you want to sit back and wait and then at the moment that prices start to fall, considerably that would be a moment to consider buying again.

[0:26:48.3]

FT: I know. We have hard time remembering history. Someone said the other day — What was that quote? I don’t know. It’s something really smart. I have to ﬁnd it, but is was basically how we do not remember history. That basically we just remember — We have no recollection of things that happened, even they were as severe as what they were during the great recession. I think that history tends to repeat. That’s what it was. We don’t remember history. History repeats. Something like that.

[0:27:17.3]

RJ: Yup. It’s a good point. By the way, speaking of history, throughout this interview is — Is that the sound of email? Is that email coming in? Could you not hear it?

[0:27:30.1]

FT: I thought in the beginning there was — I was going to stop you in the beginning, because I thought there was like a typewriter in the back and then I thought, “How appropriate that you’re calling in from ABC News and there's like the hum of a typewriter as if you are calling in from the 1940s in your time machine.” No, it’s not me, because I don’t have any emails opening up. I didn’t hear anything. Maybe it’s just the voices in your head.

[0:27:54.3]

RJ: I don’t know. It’s probably like Sally. I think it’s Sally in my head.

[0:28:00.3]

FT: Sally. Quit it, Sally. You’re distracting. Okay. We have a couple of more minutes left, and I want you to let us know who are some of the guests you have coming up on No Limits, who can we look forward to?

[0:28:15.5]

RJ: I love this questions. Obviously, Farnoosh, you guys have to come and listen to Farnoosh’s interview on No Limits. It's an awesome conversation. I really admire you, Farnoosh, and we do get into stuff that she doesn't always get in to hear on So Money, including relationships. I think that's interesting.

We have an interview coming up with Caroline, who is the creator of Carolines. For anybody who lives in New York, that’s the comedy club. Yeah. I'm really into this whole idea of comedy and how comedians.

[0:28:48.6]

FT: Great guest.

[0:28:49.2]

RJ: Thank you. But I’m really into this idea of comedy and how comedians make their lives, how they make money, how that all works out. She's one of our guests that we have coming up. We’ve got — If you haven’t listened yet to No Limits, I just hope that you'll come and take a look, because there are so many incredible women, from Jessica Alba, who’s the creator of the Honest Company; to Issa Ray. Anyone loves HBO, her show in Insecure. I'm a huge fan. She talks about that whole world.

We've got a number of business guests, Bobby Brown, how she did it. She was on your podcast, right Farnoosh?

[0:29:26.5]

FT: Bobby was not, but I had —

[0:29:26.9]

RJ: Oh, okay. Sorry.

[0:29:28.9]

FT: No, it’s okay. I would love to have all of your guests, by the way. If you want to send them over to So Money, let me know. I would be more than happy to welcome them and ask them all sorts of money questions. In fact you should have Margaret Cho on your podcast if you like to learn about commedians.

[0:29:42.3]

RJ: Oh, yeah. Deﬁnitely.

[0:29:43.7]

FT: I had her on this show. She’s fascinating, because she’s had periods of quiet in her career and then she's come back with a bang and she's got a very interesting money stories. Her childhood was so interesting being raised in San Francisco, immigrant parents. They owned businesses all her life. All different kinds of businesses, like hamburger ﬂipping business, a gay bookstore as she described it in the heart of San Francisco. She I think was just destined to be running her own show as an adult [inaudible 0:30:22.5.

[0:30:22.5]

RJ: I love it. Yeah, she's great. I deﬁnitely would love to have her on, so if you can just let her know to swing on by. That would be great. Thanks, Farnoosh.

[0:30:30.2]

FT: Sure. I’ll text her right now.

Rebecca Jarvis, thank you so much for coming on and being so generous with your time. I know you’re squeezing this in in between, probably ﬁling 7,000 different articles and reports and live hits for the network. We really appreciate you, and good luck with buying that home if you choose to or not, and hope one of your investments becomes the next — I don’t know, the next

Facebook. Let's just say Facebook. I’m not going to say Snapchat, because we know that’s not good. Twitters is on the incline, but hopefully something else, like the next Facebook.

[0:31:07.2]

RJ: Yeah. We’re looking. We’re looking for the next Facebook, so if hear about it, you can tweet Farnoosh, tweet me, let us know, because we’d be interested.

[0:31:17.6]

FT: Thank you so much.

[0:31:18.0]

RJ: Thanks, Farnoosh. You’re awesome. Really love talking with you.

[END]